Simidele Adeagbo is a trailblazing Olympian leading a movement to bring about greater inclusion and gender equality in sport. In 2018, Simidele became the first Nigerian Winter Olympian and the first African and Black woman to compete in skeleton (a sport in which athletes hurl themselves headfirst on a sled down an icy hill at 80 miles an hour) at the Olympics. She has since become the first African gold medal winner at an international bobsled race. Today, Simidele is the most decorated Nigerian and African bobsled and skeleton athlete of all time.

Hailed as “a role model for Africa and beyond” by the New York Times, Simidele is also an author, successful global business leader, Obama Foundation Leader, Yale University World Fellow, inspirational speaker and passionate advocate for women and girls. She is the founder of the SimiSleighs Foundation which is working for a world where every girl can learn, lead and benefit from the power of sport. She’s fondly known as “Africa’s original Sleigh Queen” for her historic contribution to sport and relentless drive to bring change, hope and inspiration for generations to come.

SOWING INTO THE FUTURE YOU GROUP COACHING FOR WOMEN!

Sowing into the Future You is Farah Bernier's Virtual Group Coaching Program for women seeking to either create a vision they can lean into with the help of an executive coach or take the vision they've been holding onto as aspirational and activate it with a plan to move forward, and experience progress and achievement of that vision! Originally delivered as a 90-minute masterclass to groups of up to 50 women at a time, I'm now limiting each five and a half hour session to 10 women at a time.

The next session is scheduled for August 12, 2023. Seats are filling up, so now is the time register! I look forward to seeing you there!

Keri Lyle is the Founder of Birch Collaborative, serving leaders with a blend of 10 years career and leadership development expertise alongside 15 years hands-on business experience. Drawing on her own career at a startup and at Google, and her experience coaching leaders, working side-by-side with them, and being one herself, she helps leaders uplevel themselves, their teams, and their careers. 

She works with leaders across levels, functions, and industries:

Challenging herself in the outdoors has been an important way she fosters her own growth and development, hence part of the inspiration for the name Birch Collaborative as birches are called the “Lady of the Woods.”

Lisa is based in Plano, Texas. She is an award-winning diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) +Belonging strategy consultant, speaker, and professional certified executive coach. CEOs and CHROs hire her to co-create their diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy to cultivate cultures of belonging. Her career coaching clients enjoy partnering for success as they advance their leadership skills and develop others. A recognized DEIB thought leader; she has appeared in Forbes, Choice global coaches magazine, Thrive Global’s Authority Magazine, Dallas Business Journal, D CEO Magazine, Journal of Accountancy, and AMA. Her podcast guest appearances include Beyond Barriers, ATD DEI, Catalyst, Paid Vocation, Diverseek, You Can Manage That, Intentional Conversations, Journal of Accountancy, and Living Fabulously Fierce.Before launching Wishing Out Loud LLC, she was a national diversity director in PwC’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, HR director, and a financial audit senior manager. She graduated with her BBA in Accounting from the University of Texas at Austin and her MS in Management and Professional Executive Coaching from the University of Texas at Dallas. Lisa is one of Dallas Business Journal’s 2022 Leaders in Diversity. D CEO Magazine named her to The Dallas 500 in their 2023 directory for the third year as "one of the most powerful business leaders in DFW.” In addition to serving on the TXCPA Board of Directors, she served as Chair of the TXCPA Dallas chapter and as a member of the AICPA Council and the AICPA National Commission on Diversity and Inclusion. Lisa serves on several Advisory boards and Boards and recently joined the global board of the Infusion Nurses Society. Connect with her on LinkedIn or Instagram @wishingoutloud.

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Trista enjoys helping leaders build awareness about what’s going on in an organizational system and take action to move towards their goals. She also loves building things that scale.

Over her 11 years at Google, Trista played a number of roles focused on building organizational effectiveness — consultant, facilitator, program manager, coach, and HRBP. She is most well-known for building and leading the global Team Development platform of scalable resources and services to enable all teams to get help on demand. This work scaled and operationalized the principles laid out in Google’s Team Effectiveness research, Project Aristotle.

Trista has a MS degree in Organization Development from Pepperdine University and is a certified coach through the Hudson Institute. She lives in Seattle with her loving partner, two amazing daughters and six chickens.

Happy New Year! Seasonal Interview with yours truly in the hot seat!

Taylor Jay is the vision and pulse behind the Taylor Jay company.  A bay area native, Taylor jay has worked in the fashion industry for over 12 years.  As a high school graduate and aspiring stylist, Taylor moved to Los Angeles where she studied fashion merchandising at the California school of fashion design. And it’s in sunny Los Angeles that Taylor opened her first boutique at the age of 23.

With business thriving and upon returning home to the bay area to open a second boutique, Taylor created her first collection, the Taylor jay collection, inspired by her own journey and body challenges. The clothing she designed impressed local customers and boosted demand encouraging Taylor to pursue her very own brand full time in Oakland, now home to the Taylor jay atelier.

Taylor Jay is more than just a fashion entrepreneur. Tough challenges early in her life only fueled Taylor’s pursuit of her fashion dreams. She has not only become a role model for her daughter, but for many black women entrepreneurs on the rise. She is often featured as a panelist to share her story and perspective. She hopes that her experience and designs can inspire other women to walk confidently and comfortably towards their dreams.

In her words, she will "...continue to design beautiful clothing that lasts a lifetime and makes every woman feel and look amazing.”

Janet Da Silva, M.B.A. has 7+ years in financial services having worked for Fidelity Investments and Chief Operations Officer of EYL University which is an online educational platform focused on financial literacy and entrepreneurship.  She is passionate about fostering economic empowerment in black and brown people groups through education. She understands that by leveraging the gifts and talents in our communities we can solve any problem.

The last 6+ years she has sponsored college students in Cabo Verde to assist in the completion of their studies debt free. Through obtaining her Masters in Business Administration with a focus in strategic planning and innovative practices from the University of Rhode Island, she knows the power of education (preparation) meeting opportunity.

She currently owns a multi-unit property where she airbnbs the units and houses travel nurses in Providence, RI. Janet is a real estate investor of almost 4 years, she used househacking as a way to lower expenses and assist with paying off her student loans and now is debt free. She is an Airbnb superhost who is actively looking to add to her real estate portfolio and invest in another property in the near future.

Janet is a budding entrepreneur who is currently consulting and assisting organizations and individuals in accomplishing their goals through functional strategic planning.

Stacy is an Executive Coach and founder of Stride Executive Coaching, LLC where she is a catalyst for individuals and corporations taking decisive, transformative steps on their leadership journeys. Her primary focus is coaching leaders and executives through their desired transformations by evoking their authentic purpose and passions while leveraging their unique talents. Her practice includes individual and team coaching engagements as well as designing and facilitating executive development experiences for companies strategically investing in their talent. 

Stacy’s favorite pastime is to combine her loves of travel and running with her family and friends. She and her husband Alan both grew up in Michigan. They have raised three children, all of whom chose to study in the Midwest. While they live in Atlanta with their two rescue dogs, they return to their “heaven on earth” Northern Michigan cottage as often as possible.

Stephanie Villanueva-Villar is the Founder & Executive director of Your Girl for Good, a D.C. non-profit organization that equips young girls of color with successful female mentors in the STEM, Art, and Political sectors. Since 2017, Stephanie has created summer mentorship programs, workshops, and summits that focus on reminding young girls of their limitless potential by connecting them with a network of supportive professional women and exposing them to an array of career fields, college guidance, and mindfulness practices. Stephanie is passionate about the advancement of communities of color and has collaborated with the Smithsonian, Girls Who Code, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Education to develop and implement diversity and inclusion programs that uplift the voices of marginalized students. Stephanie is a recent graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University and double majored in International Social Justice and Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies with a minor in Political Science. She is a Vital Voices Fellow, Herlead Ambassador, and RockStar Award Grantee. She currently serves on VCU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion advisory board for the Massey Cancer Center. In her free time, Stephanie loves to draw, bake banana bread, and go on long scenic walks with her yorkie, Lucas.

Feel free to connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn or through her organization’s website at https://www.yourgirlforgood.org/.

Alexandria Butler (aka Lexi B) is a self-proclaimed Freedom Fighter and leader in building executive leadership and workplace equity in the tech industry. After several years working at some of the biggest tech companies in Silicon Valley, Butler founded Sista Circle: Black Women in Tech, initially as a way to meet another Black woman in tech to be mentored, as they make up less than 3% of the tech workforce.

Today this community has over 14,000 members in a global online community sharing their insights, challenges, tips, and opportunities. SC:BWiT launched a new and instantly popular Job Board in 2022, attracting the eyeballs of thousands of Black Women with tech skills seeking career opportunities in a bustling economy.

Butler is a dynamic storyteller, motivational speaker, media maven, and mentor to young people starting out in their careers. Butler leads with her engaging personality, giant ambition, and creative mind laser-focused on moving people forward. With her star on the rise, she recently was interviewed by her hometown St. Louis KMOV TV News for a ‘local girl does good’ profile touting her success in increasing the number of Black women in the tech industry. Lexi B is a

unique voice poised for big things.

She’s one to watch!